(upbeat music)
- My name's Greg Misfud, I'm the National Wild Dog
Management Coordinator with the Centre For Invasive
Species Solutions.
We're working with landholders to try and stop the impacts
of wild dogs and foxes from attacking livestock,
Sheep, lambs.
Increase their productivity.
We've been integrating and studying wild dogs and foxes
and developing best-practice control techniques
involving trapping, baiting.
Yet we still have a lot of trouble convincing landholders
in some places to use wild dog and fox baits,
due to concerns over their working dogs.
They're valued tools, valued animals, valued companions.
And we've been developing techniques
to try and reduce those risks.
But ultimately the safest way we can protect the dog
is by using a muzzle, so we're here today to talk
to a prominent breeder and dog trainer,
to see just how he goes about getting those dogs used to
the muzzles and what he's looking for in a type of muzzle
that he thinks is suitable for his dog to work all day.
- My name's Joe Spicer, I'm from the GoGetta Kelpie Stud
in the western district of Victoria.
I've been breeding dogs for 25 years and been helping
lots of people to train their dogs.
We do probably about 15 or more working dog clinics a year.
I split my time up between training working dogs,
breeding pups, doing a little bit of livestock contracting
and working dog schools.
We use muzzles on our working dogs for a range of reasons.
Sometimes it's to ensure that there's no chance of
the dogs biting the livestock, but obviously when we're
in areas where there may have been invading recently,
then obviously we'll just put a muzzle on dogs as a
matter of course.
Foxes and wild dogs are a huge problem for a lot
of livestock producers and they're costing them a lot
of money and causing them a lot of personal stress too.
So yes, it's a huge issue.
- So how important do you think it is for growers here
to be able to use baits confidently, with muzzles,
knowing that their dogs are safe?
- Yeah, look, it's imperative that everyone does their bit
and works in that coordinated strategic manner to try
and keep the population where it's not
affecting their livestock.
- Do these guys see that muzzle and get excited?
- Yeah, look, you'll see them when you actually put the
muzzle on the dog, that the dog actually pushes his nose
into the muzzle, 'cause he knows that, "Okay, if I get the
muzzle put on, I'm gonna work and I love working."
So they actually do associate the muzzle with something
good very quickly.
- [Greg] Just like slipping your work boots on
in the morning.
- Yeah pretty much, it's just part of what you do
every morning before the dog gets out of the pen,
or off the chain, he gets the muzzle on and away he goes.
I always like to keep the muzzles on top of the pen and that
way we know that the dog's safe from the time that it
gets out of the pen to the time it gets in the pen,
it's there, you'll never lose it, it's always there where
you need it.
I recommend that you put the muzzles on when you're getting
the dogs out of the pen.
You can see how she doesn't mind having the muzzle put on
at all, in fact, just puts her nose into it, like so.
It's important when you do put the muzzle on that you put
the strap through the collar.
You can see that the grating's relatively close together,
so it's highly unlikely that your dog will ever get a
bait through the grating there.
It's quite lightweight, there's plenty of room for the dog
to open its mouth and to breathe.
And probably the feature that I look for the most in muzzles
is a nice wide pad on the top of the nose, and that way
you won't get any marks or wearing up on top of the nose.
And you can see how there's very little weight in these
muzzles so the dog hardly knows that she's got it on
and when you put them back in their pen, just take it off.
So it's really important when I go in probably that
I'm able to put muzzles on my dogs if need be, I just
get them used to it in their pen at home.
Part of keeping the dog quiet, you always have dogs barking
in the pen that will annoy you.
Whenever they're annoying me and barking I just come
and put a muzzle on them and that keeps them quiet
for a while but also, the main reason is that it gets them
used to the muzzles.
Every dog's affected by muzzles in different ways,
some have no effect whatsoever, as long as you spend
time getting them used to the muzzle.
Dogs are associate places and different things with
different behaviours.
So like a truck dog will quite often know that a muzzle
means it's time to unload or load a truck.
So definitely there are different responses but, no,
I don't see any need to give a response, provided you
get the dog used to the muzzle prior to taking it to work.
Training's all about patterns, creating patterns.
So, yes, giving your dog a routine where it knows what's
coming next basically, that the muzzle means work.
You can start the routine of getting your dog
used to a muzzle from any age, it doesn't really matter.
Obviously the younger, the more quickly the dog
will accept the muzzle.
That can be done very easily by just putting the muzzle
on the dog and when it's on the motorbike,
or the back of the Ute, or when it's in its pen
for a period.
Also a muzzle has a huge advantage in the yards,
in that it teaches dogs different ways
of creating movement with stock.
They start barking more when need be,
they start positioning themselves better.
So they look for other tools to create movement.
- So what we've been trying to do today is
give people the knowledge about how to go about
getting your dog used to that muzzle
before you need to bait.
To know that the dog's got a muzzle on and it's focused
on working and can't eat a bait through that muzzle
is just the extra confidence required to get people
to do baiting on a more regular basis.
(upbeat music)